Dear all,
September is here, and for most of us the holiday mood has given way to the welcome return of busier streets, packed terraces (in case of a rain-free day…), and the general sense that the city is alive again! On our side, the past few weeks were anything but slow — not a holiday in sight, but plenty of kilometres, plenty of vineyards, and more wine than any of us could reasonably evaluate at once. In the middle of August we visited a total of fifteen producers across the Jura, Burgundy, and Beaujolais, with conversations along the way with two potential new faces for the portfolio — of whom more in the coming months. Before France, we made a quick detour to Münster for beer business (more on that below), and are now on our way to spend several days on Sardinia, visiting Gianfranco of Panevino in Nurri.
After seeing close to twenty producers in the space of a few weeks, we are, frankly, overflowing with enthusiasm and almost impatient to share everything. Since our analog photographs are still being developed, the full photo reports from France and Sardinia will follow in the next newsletter — but one extremely exciting new arrival can already be shared today.
One of the most thrilling stops of the French trip was Monday 17 August in Nuits-Saint-Georges, where we visited Les Jardiniers Vignerons for the first time — a young duo of winemakers we have been following for several years, and whose wines we can now officially release as a trio of vintages. Read on for a full report.
Furthermore, there is also a save-the-date to share for our annual Portfolio Tasting in November, which is big news! The Portfolio Tasting weekend will be held on 31 October & 1 November 2026 at Restaurant Choux’ third and fourth floor, as is tradition. The official invite will follow later in September, but we couldn’t wait sharing the actual dates…
There’s more regarding fun events: our long-standing friend Jim de Jong, chef of Restaurant Renilde in Rotterdam, will be cooking at Zuiver Bar on Wednesday 2 September. Jim will prepare a well-priced, seasonal three-course menu, and Figo and Sjanne, sommelier of Restaurant Renilde, will pour the new vintage by Jean-Pierre Robinot, and might also open a few old bottles. Scroll down further for more info, as well as info on how to reserve. Also, our roommates of Nai!! Pure Sake Bar are throwing their official grand opening party on Saturday the 19th of September, for all lovers of pure rice wine.
Furthermore, there’s news from Japan: the exchange rate of the yen has brought the prices of La Grande Colline Japon (Hirtoka Ōoka’s Japanese project) down significantly, with reductions of fifteen to thirty percent compared to last year. There is also good news from Slovenia, where Radovan Šuman has finally bottled his 2024s after two difficult harvests; short news about Vivanterre, the négoce-project which Justine Loiseau & Patrick Bouju run to bring zéro-zéro wines to market for even lower prices; new arrivals from Julian Ruiz of Esencia Rural in La Mancha — Dick’s absolute favourite producer — and a small preview of a new collaboration with Rheinheitsgebot-brewery Pinkus Müller, the oldest organic brewery in the world.
Read on for everything, including the save-the-date for the Portfolio Tasting and some Zuiver Bar agenda news down below!
SAVE THE DATE: ZUIVER WIJNEN PORTFOLIO TASTING 2026
Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November 2026
@ Restaurant Choux, Amsterdam
Even though the poster and line-up are still in the works, we have decided on the date for the annual Portfolio Tasting! As is tradition, the first weekend of November will be the Portfolio Tasting-weekend, which will be on Saturday 31 October and Sunday 1 November this year. The whole thing will once again take place on the third and fourth floors of Restaurant Choux at De Ruijterkade 128 in Amsterdam.
We are currently working on a line-up of (at least!) seven producers from the Zuiver portfolio, with around 120 different cuvées to taste across the weekend. Alongside the tasting itself we will be organising a number of talks and roundtable conversations — and now that Zuiver Bar is part of our world, we will most likely also be putting together a daytime + evening (+ sustenance…) programme at number 143, just a few doors down from Choux.
There’s a possibility the annual winemakers dinner will take place on Sunday at Restaurant Choux (instead of the traditional Saturday), but that will be decided soon. This and a full, official invitation with all the details — times, programme, evening events — will follow separately and via Instagram later in September. We are VERY excited!
FIRST (RED) BURGUNDY: LES JARDINIERS VIGNERONS — NUITS-SAINT-GEORGES
During our French trip last month, we visited the cellar of Les Jardiniers Vignerons in Nuits-Saint-Georges, home to young winemakers Benjamin Lopez and his close friend Renaud Buret. Just before harvest, we tasted our way through all of their bottled 2024s and 2025s in the cellar, plus a substantial range of 2025s straight from the vat, and came away very thrilled. We came to know the pair through our good friend Thibaud Capellaro, who studied winemaking together with Benjamin (and their mutual friend Marius Long), and we have been quietly buying small amounts of their wine across the 2023, 2024, and first 2025 vintages — ageing everything in our own storage before releasing it all at once, which is now!
Renaud and Benjamin have known each other since secondary school in Burgundy, and came to work together at the biodynamic estate of Bruno Clavelier, a family friend of both. Renaud still works for Bruno today; Benjamin, when not in his own cellar, tends vines at the farms of friends in the Beaujolais. The plan is eventually to fund the project entirely on its own — but for now, with production genuinely tiny, both keep their day jobs.
Benjamin — nephew of Arnaud Lopez of Maison Pinot Noar — studied geology before spending several years at the legendary Prieuré Roch in Vosne-Romanée, the estate once founded by Henry-Frédéric Roch. There he absorbed everything there was to learn about soil care, the language of the Côte d’Or, and the precision that defines the greatest Burgundy. His circle — Thibaud, Marius, his uncle Arnaud — gravitates naturally towards zero-sulphur winemaking, and the results speak for themselves.
What sets Benjamin apart is his geologist’s eye for the land. Where most winemakers come to know their terroir through years of experience, Benjamin reads the soil like a map: clay depth, rock layers, root penetration, and why the same grape tastes entirely different twenty metres away. That geological literacy translates into a remarkable range — from Gamay in the Beaujolais to Hautes-Côtes de Nuits at four hundred metres altitude. Les Jardiniers Vignerons works exclusively as a négociant (for now): they buy fruit from organic growers they know well, harvest and vinify everything themselves, and produce around 7,000 bottles per year. After fermentation in stainless steel, the wines age in barrel. Sulphur is added only when volatile acidity becomes excessive — the preference is always to work without, and the 2024s and 2025s are vinified without.
In the cellar we were very impressed, not least because this was the first time we had tasted the full range side by side. We began with the 2024s, some of which are Vin de France and some of which carry the Bourgogne AOC or Hautes-Côtes de Nuits AOC appellation.
We started with the Bourgogne Aligoté ‘en Fée’ 2024 — from fifty-year-old vines on chalky Hautes-Côtes de Nuits soil, one year in barrel — which came out of the bottle taut, pure, and complex, with real acidity and a mineral depth that does the appellation proud. The ‘En Fée’ was stricter and more mineral than the Vin de France Aligoté from the neighbouring Glapigny parcel: a difference that explains itself easily at the table. The 2024 harvest volume was also slightly reduced in quantity, meaning Renaud and Benjamin didn’t quite have enough wine to fill all their barrels — so this Aligoté also developed a voile layer, adding further depth and complexity. Happy accidents, we like!
After the Aligoté we moved not to Chardonnay but to Pinot Blanc — permitted in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits AOC appellation — and it blew us away entirely. Despite its low 10.5% alcohol, the HCN ‘Aux Champs Perdrix’ 2024 has enormous depth and tension. It grows close to En Fée but was harvested at a different moment, and the result — thanks to the fraîcheur and citrus-mineral quality of the chalk soil — is a wine that calls Chablis to mind. After a year in barrel it is absolutely bursting with energy, and bottled, to our great pleasure, entirely without sulphites. Just eighteen bottles for the Dutch market…
The first red was the Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2024 — stylistically the most classically Burgundian of the range, as the grapes come from the more southerly Les Crays near Tournus. Like all their wines it is made entirely without additions, but it is also the most approachable entry point for anyone who loves classic Burgundy. The soil at Les Crays is light calcareous stone with thin layers of clay and silt — well-draining, with deep roots. The slightly warmer microclimate gives fuller ripeness and a rounder style; despite that, the wine has genuine freshness from the cool 2024 vintage, and grip from a longer pigéage and a year in barrel. It will develop beautifully over the coming years.
The surprise of the range was the razor-sharp, high-energy light-red Pinot Noir HCN ‘Les Larrets’ 2024, again from the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits: lighter in colour because it was picked earlier and with less maceration, but all the better for it — volcanic, smoky, with a hint of tomato and an energy that recalls the wines of the Auvergne. It comes in at just 10.5% thanks to the combination of harvest timing, cooler parcels, cool vintage, and whole-cluster fermentation. Job was briefly lost for words by this singing Les Larrets, which is rare!
From the 2025 harvest, two Vin de France-cuvées are available now — the ones Renaud and Benjamin have released early, which they call their cuvées de printemps; the other whites and reds were still in the vat at time of visiting, to be bottled at the start of winter.
The VDF Aligoté 2025 comes from a parcel near Vosne-Romanée with more clay in the soil, and is already a small masterwork — toast, round acidity, a classier style than the 2024 En Fée thanks to the more balanced vintage. Bottled sans soufre and absolutely delicious. The VDF Rouge 2025 is what Renaud and Benjamin (and hip Amsterdam winedrinkers!) call a blouge (blanc + rouge): fifty per cent Gamay, twenty-five per cent Pinot Noir, and twenty-five per cent Aligoté, the red fraction vinified as whole clusters — rosy on the nose, full of cedar, drinking like an old-school soif-Burgundy. Six months in barrel, also sans soufre, also 10.5%. Genius wine, if you’d ask us!
Straight from the vat we also tasted the 2025 Aligoté En Fée — already delicious, with real acidity and a distant echo of Robinot from a cool year but stricter and more precise — and a Hautes-Côtes de Beaune and a Marsannay 2025, both new appellations for the domaine. The Marsannay had beautiful acidity and a fine, fruit-protective reduction very close in character to the Les Larrets 2024, which was quietly our favourite red of the tasting.
We also have a VDF Gamay 2023 from Beaujolais limestone soils between Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand — a little more textured and warmer than the lighter 2024 and 2025 vintages, but wonderfully lively. And there is a Gamay-Grenache 2023 that we have been pouring with great pleasure at Zuiver Bar — get in touch if you are interested.
What makes Renaud and Benjamin’s wines remarkable is that genuinely ‘zéro-zéro’ Burgundy — is extraordinarily rare. The producers who do work that way tend to price accordingly; Renaud and Benjamin are trying to price theirs so they do not only exist for the privileged few, although ‘risky’ winemaking in Burgundy is still a costly adventure.
We could not be more enthusiastic about this release, and are very happy to welcome Renaud & Benjamin into the Zuiver portfolio. The 2025s still in the vat will arrive later this year, and we can barely wait. The amounts are limited to a few cases of each cuvée, so please get in touch if you’d require more information on availability.
LA GRANDE COLLINE JAPON — PRICES SIGNIFICANTLY DOWN DUE TO THE YEN
Those who have followed the wines of La Grande Colline Japon will know that the name Hirotake Ōoka has the status in the natural wine world of a composer who invented his own genre. Ōoka spent more than twenty years in France, including a significant period near Condrieu in the northern Rhône, where he made extraordinary wines under the La Grande Colline label — Saint-Joseph, Cornas — before returning to Japan and settling in the Okayama prefecture. There he makes wine from indigenous Japanese grape varieties and the fruit of local organic growers, using nothing other than his long-trained French sensibility as a starting point. The La Grande Colline Japon range is produced in such minimal quantities that we are, as Dutch distributor, virtually the only distributor in Europe; every shipment is an undertaking in itself, and the wines are available almost exclusively from us within Europe.
The big news this season does not only cover the wines, but also covers the economic aspect of wines from Japan: the yen is at a historic low against the euro, which means the purchase prices of the Japanese wines have fallen by fifteen to thirty-five per cent. We are passing that reduction on in full, making these extraordinary wines more accessible than they have been in years.
Both Le Canon Pét Nat 2023 and Le Canon Pét Nat 2024 are now priced at only €30, compared to €36 before in the shop and online, which is a nice and significant decrease in our eyes: by drinking 6 of the bottles for the new price, you will have saved one bottle at the old price… The 2024 is made from seventy per cent Cabernet Sauvignon from forty-year-old vines in Kobe and thirty per cent Muscat Alexandria from Okayama — both organically grown and carefully selected by Ōoka. The Cabernet brings structure and red fruit; the Muscat adds a playful aromatic quality of wild strawberry, pineapple, elderflower, and raspberry. The 2024 is fractionally fresher — an earlier harvest — while the 2023 is already a fabulously festive wine, especially for a lower price.
The undisputed crown of the range is the Shōkōshi 2023, now €50.50 (versus around €81 for the previous vintage…). Shōkōshi means ‘little prince’ and refers to the Japanese hybrid grape of the same name — a cross with Yama-budō, the wild mountain grape that has grown in Japan for over a thousand years. The grapes come from the Sawanobori family’s gardens in Makioka, Yamanashi, grown completely without pesticides. After three weeks of macération carbonique and eleven months ageing in barrel in Okayama, the Shōkōshi is a wine of remarkable concentration, softness, and spice — one that secretly reminds us most of Ōoka’s Cornas wines made from Syrah in the northern Rhône. Ōoka himself suggests a drinking horizon of fifteen to twenty years, but we have tested it enough to say without hesitation that it drinks magnificently now. Quantities are minimal.
Lastly, we received new stock of the Yama & Sō 2024, which is made from three-quarters Cabernet Sauvignon from the same Kobe vines and one quarter Yama-budō from the Iwate prefecture, from a young grower Ōoka is delighted to support. The name is a pun: Yama for mountain grape, Sō for Sauvignon — Yama & Sō 2024. After three weeks of macération carbonique and ageing on inox, this is the most approachable wine of the range: light red in colour, vivid, sappy, and surprisingly fresh, with ripe strawberry, violets, and a fine earthy edge. The most accessible starting point for anyone new to Ōoka’s work — and probably impossible to stop at one glass. Arigatō gozaimasu, Ōoka-san!
RADOVAN ŠUMAN — NEW VINTAGES AFTER TWO DIFFICULT YEARS
The name Radovan Šuman used to appear in our newsletter every August, and with good reason: his wines from the hills of northern Slovenia, right on the border with Austrian Steiermark, are exactly the style one reaches for at the turn from summer into autumn. The past two years were quiet — 2022 and 2023 were exceptionally difficult harvests for Radovan, with mildew, drought, and unpredictable weather cutting yields sharply, and what little was made stayed largely in Slovenia, but we are happy to finally have received small quantities from the 2024 vintage!
With this shipment, we received a few cases of the crowd favourite Moon Drops 2024. Moon Drops is Radovan’s great field blend from the rolling hills of Slovenian Steiermark, coming from the more dew-heavy parts of the vineyard where some botrytis can develop on the grapes just before harvest. The botrytised grapes are pressed directly, while the rest are briefly macerated and then aged for two years in old wooden casks — creating a vast, energetic, and wonderfully complex mélange. The Moon Drops is the wine through which most of our customers first encountered Šuman’s work: imposing without being heavy, complex without being academic.
Alongside it, we received the Sivi Pinot 2024 — Radovan’s version of Pinot Grigio, herbal and spice-rich, with echoes of north-east Italy but fresher and more precise thanks to the Slovenian climate, as well as the Sun Drops 2024. Sun Drops could be considered his flagship: it’s late-harvested Sauvignon Blanc and Traminer from the higher parts of the vineyard, without botrytis, fermented one month on skins, then aged at length in wood. The Sun Drops asks for attention and rewards it generously, and also is a wine made to stand the test of time.
For those drawn to older vintages, both the Sivi Pinot 2021 and Sun Drops 2021 are still available, alongside a small number of bottles from 2020 and 2021 — some of which we also pour with great pleasure at Zuiver Bar. Get in touch for availability or a taste…
ESENCIA RURAL — THE 2025S ARE HERE, AND DICK IS DELIGHTED
There are few producers for whom Dick expresses his enthusiasm as unambiguously as he does for Esencia Rural. Julian Ruiz works in Castilla-La Mancha with fruit from pre-phylloxera vines — some of them over a hundred and eighty years old — and makes wines from them that are shockingly low in price and extraordinary in character. Dick visited Julian together with Job and Olivier in the spring of 2025, and we finally have the wines in from that particular vintage.
The Pampaneo range is the entry point into Esencia Rural and is once again available in generous quantities. These are the wines Julian prices at the absolute floor, because he believes Tempranillo and Airén command no high prices and that wine from this part of Spain has always been affordable. The prices are almost impossible to explain — yet Julian takes risks (long oxidative ageing, extended maceration, generally zero additions) that have no business being taken at these price points. The Pampaneo wines can be seen as his most ‘restrained’ expressions, bottled a little earlier than the bigger De Sol a Sol range, but are characterful and baroque nonetheless.
The Pampaneo Tempranillo Natural 2025 (€12.50) is made from Tempranillo with several days of skin contact, and has more depth and structure than the price has any right to suggest, with savoury notes, dark fruits, fine tannins, and a eucalyptus freshness that makes it wonderfully drinkable. The Pampaneo Airén Natural 2025 is the best-priced zéro-zéro orange wine we know: Julian uses extended oxygen contact to build the naturally low acidity of Airén, creating a fresh, nutty orange wine with real energy and ripe citrus and dried tropical fruits, priced at only €12 per bottle. Both have been tasted and tested, and we cannot recommend them more enthusiastically.
Both wines also come in ‘ECO’ versions, made with a homeopathic dose of sulphites: the Pampaneo Tempranillo ECO 2025 (€12.00) and the Pampaneo Airén ECO 2025 (€11.50) — both slightly tighter and more mineral than the wilder natural versions. The ‘ECO’ stands for ‘ecological’, but we think ‘economical’ is not a bad reference either.
Next to these wines, we also have more bubbles by Julian back in again! The Pampaneo Ancestral 2024 (€13.50) is the sparkling sister to the still red and orange Pampaneo’s: a pétillant naturel with an unmistakably Central Spanish character — fruity, light, with an energetic mousse that recalls pineapple juice with a sake-like twist. Very delicious, and a big party-starter.
At the more serious end of the range, the De Sol a Sol Tempranillo Natural 2021 (€14.50) is back, and just like the other De Sol A Sol wines, this comes from pre-phylloxera vines, is vinified with extended oxidative ageing to develop acidity, with a character that calls to mind bay leaf, coffee, cacao, and dried fruit. Also back on the list is a very special cuvée: the De Sol a Sol Dulce Natural 2018 (€23.00), Julian’s sweet wine from late-harvested grapes — the kind that Figo poured at Restaurant Choux alongside a dessert of blood orange and sea buckthorn and made an entire table go quiet…
SHORT WINE NEWS: VIVANTERRE — BOUJU & LOISEAU
Alongside their domaine project, their négoce range, their wines made in collaboration with friends, and their project on the Greek island of Samos, Justine Loiseau and Patrick Bouju have now also released the wines of their Vivanterre label — designed to produce wine in slightly larger volumes, at even more accessible prices.
Currently, we have the Orange 2022 in stock, which is an aromatic orange wine from white grapes sourced in the Languedoc and Alsace, that drinks very expressive, but is not too overwhelming as the Gewürz is dialed down by blending it with other grapes. The Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois are raised in foudres, Gewürztraminer in amphora; all three undergo three weeks of skin contact before being blended with Grenache Gris and Ugni Blanc from the northern Languedoc, which spend two weeks on skins. The result is an orange wine that is approachable and welcoming but full of life, floral aromatics, and fine structure — the style that converts people who didn’t know they liked orange wine.
Also, we received a more economical sister to the Bouju’s Festejar Rosé, namely the Pink Pét Nat 2021, which is made from fifty percent Gamay from the Beaujolais and forty percent Syrah from the Roussillon, with brief skin contact for colour and freshness, supplemented with a small splash of white grapes from Alsace, and then bottle-fermented. Deep pink, lively, and perfect for the terrace or a light meal. Wish we would have some magnums…
PINKUS MÜLLER — BEER FROM MÜNSTER: A PREVIEW
Just before the French trip, Figo and Olivier made a day trip to Münster in Germany — for beer. Although the first order has yet to arrive, we can reveal that we are in talks with Brauerei Pinkus Müller, the oldest organic brewery in the world. The brewery has stood in the heart of Münster since 1816 — over two hundred years at the same address on Kreuzstraße — and has been brewing exclusively with certified organic ingredients for decades. All beers are made according to the Reinheitsgebot, the German brewing law that allows nothing beyond barley, hops, yeast, and water. No additions, no concessions.
The range is broad and consistently excellent: the unfiltered classics — Münster Alt, Pils, naturtrübe Special, and Hefe Weizen — sit alongside a Natur Radler (made with real organic lemon juice rather than concentrate) and a full line of alcohol-free options, including an alcohol-free Weizen, a cold-hopped Hopfen Hell, and a refreshing Ingwer Mix. These are, in the best possible sense, everyday beers — just made to a standard the everyday rarely reaches. We have long worked with Nevel, whose beers lean closer to wine in character, but we noticed a genuine demand for something more classically brilliant. Pinkus Müller is exactly that: organic beer at sharp prices, and in a different league from the Heinekens of the world.
We are currently deciding which part of the range to order. More details once the first shipment is confirmed — and if you are curious or have a preference, let us know.
PS.: Münster itself comes highly recommended for a day trip; lunch at the Gaststätte of Pinkus Müller is, naturally, non-negotiable!
ZUIVER BAR — SEPTEMBER PROGRAMME
Over the past two months we have welcomed a number of friends and colleagues to Zuiver Bar for evenings of cooking and wine, including Josephine & Isabelle of Table Top and Rik Kleuver of Amsterdam Vintage Wine Boutique.
Luckily, September brings more good fun! On Wednesday 2 September, Jim de Jong of Restaurant Renilde in Rotterdam is coming to cook — a name that has long since travelled well beyond the city, with a style we love: pure, direct, fresh, and deeply seasonal. We’ve known Jim for over a decade, and are super excited to have him cook here. Jim will prepare a simple, seasonal three-course menu for €39.50, with wines poured by our own Figo and Renilde’s Sjanne. There’s a high chance it will be one big Robinot-extravaganza, both from the new release as some cellar finds…
Both evenings start from 17:00 for aperitif, with food being served from 18:00. Reservations can be made via booking tickets via the link below. Please let us know via info@zuiverwijnen.nl if there’s any questions.
NAI!! PURE SAKE BAR — GRAND OPENING 19 SEPTEMBER
On Saturday 19 September, our roommate, NAI!! Pure Sake Bar, is throwing its grand opening during the Sake Days festival week. An earlier attempt at a launch was called off after the date landed on the same evening as the Netherlands–Sweden World Cup qualifier — not a competition anyone could reasonably win against — but this time there is no such obstacle.
The bar opens from early afternoon for a sake lunch and keeps going through to the small hours. Natural sake brewery Terada Honke will be in attendance in full force. The evening will be opened musically by someone with an impeccable track record in both music and tailoring. Culinary highlights, sake cocktails, vinyl — and above all, a curated selection of over fifty pure sakes available by the glass. The full programme will follow on the Nai!! Pure Sake Bar Instagram.
That is everything for this month — though there is genuinely more to tell. In the next newsletter: photo reports from the France trip through the Jura, Burgundy, and Beaujolais, and from our time on Sardinia with Gianfranco Manca of Panevino in Nurri. To be continued.
As always we are available throughout the week and via the regular channels for questions, tastings, pairing suggestions, or simply a good conversation about wine. We hope to see you all soon!
Warm regards,
Dick, Figo, Job, Luna, Merijn, Olivier & Tom
